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a.s.
Valinor
May 20 2009, 11:22am
Views: 1132
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Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more: What have you been reading this week?
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Can't Post
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Feeling all Henry the Fifth this week, for some reason, having re-read a book about Ignaz Semmelweis and his fight to save women from dying in childbirth: Cry and the Covenant by Morton Thompson. This is a book I was assigned to read in my first class as a freshman in nursing school MANY years ago (we'll just avert our eyes from the actual number of decades, all rightie?) and made an indelible impression on me then. I re-read it now with an experienced (perhaps somewhat jaundiced) eye, and still find my pulse racing at the outright horror brought on by the stupidity of medical men of the day (it's OK, guys, the heroes were men, too--although the midwives quietly plying their age-old trade were the unsung heroes all along).
First, the writing. It stinks. I was terribly impressed as a wide-eyed twenty-year old, but find it overwrought, melodramatic, and just plain stinky in parts. It doesn't matter, though. The drama is so compelling and the horror so vivid and real that you will keep turning the page anyway.
I found a contemporary review from The British Medical Library Association that seems to indicate Thompson played a little loose with some of the historical characters. That doesn't matter, either. For anyone who scoffs at the scientific process, take a look at what happened to Semmelweis: he dropped maternal mortality on his wards from appalling and CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT rates like 40-50% down to close to 1% by making the doctors wash their hands and use antisepsis (as known at the time)--and they LOCKED HIM UP IN A MENTAL WARD. Yes, that was me yelling. He begged one simple thing: don't go from the cadavers in the autopsy room who died of childbed fever straight to the maternity wards and do an internal exam WITHOUT WASHING YOUR HANDS. Which was, you know, ordinary medical practice at the time.
The midwives, of course, were too low down on the totem pole to ever have access to cadavers in the first place, and were always washing their hands anyway as standard practice. Women did not die in astounding numbers on their wards, only on the medical wards. In fact, women who delivered in the gutter on the way to the hospital and had no internal exams by any doctor survived in good numbers, too. The medical wards were killing fields for moms, in those times.
He's a hero, now. I hope when he got to heaven and met the souls of the women who died because no one would listen to him, they all gave him a round of applause.
Seriously, if you can find this book, read it. If not, read about Semmelweis, a true hero. Women who deliever in hospitals owe him a big debt, to this day.
So, from melodrama to quiet ordinary human drama written with humor: I read Alexander McCall Smith's latest Mma Ramotswe novel: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. Oh my. I love these books. I wish there were hundreds. I wish Smith had started writing them thirty years ago so I could read dozens a year. I dread the day when I am holding the last one published. Nothing really much happens in Tea Time, even the "mystery" solved by the lady detectives isn't much, this time. But we learn what happens to the tiny white van, and we see Mma Ramotswe at her most vulnerable and loving. A+. Well, really, ungradable. Just great.
I also finished an audiobook version of What Was Lost, an interesting first novel by Catherine O'Flynn. Very good. Despite the descriptions, this is not really a traditional ghost story, nor a traditional "mystery" or detective story. It's just a moving and believable story about human beings, really, trite as it sounds. Try it!
And that's it for me. Not sure what I'm reading next, I have books on hold at the library and yet my resolution to finish the Barchester Tower series is staring me in the face (Dr. Thorne is on my bedside table getting dusty!) so we'll see what I pick up this week.
But what about you all? What have you been reading this week?
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"If any one had begun to rehearse a History, say not I know it well; and if he relate it not right and fully, shake not thine head, twinkle not thine eyes, and snigger not thereat; much less maist thou say, 'It is not so; you deceive yourself.'"
From: Youth's Behaviour, or, Decency in Conversation amongst Men, composed in French by Grave Persons, for the use and benefit of their Youth. The tenth impression. London, 1672
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Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more: What have you been reading this week?
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a.s.
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May 20 2009, 11:22am
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*geeky-mama squee!*
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Alassëa Eruvande
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May 20 2009, 1:15pm
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Applause!
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Aunt Dora Baggins
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May 20 2009, 2:14pm
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Squeee indeed!
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Lily Fairbairn
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May 20 2009, 2:41pm
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Oh, that is just TOO ADORABLE. (n/t)
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Sunflower
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May 20 2009, 7:26pm
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what is WRONG with those AR people!!!???
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 4:25am
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The Gospel of Luke
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Aunt Dora Baggins
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May 20 2009, 2:26pm
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A big hug for Aunt Dora
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Lily Fairbairn
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May 20 2009, 2:43pm
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Same here
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Sunflower
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May 20 2009, 7:10pm
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Interesting!
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Aunt Dora Baggins
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May 21 2009, 3:05am
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Another hug.
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Kimi
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May 20 2009, 10:32pm
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Thanks, guys.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
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May 21 2009, 2:32am
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Watching this video saved me from doing the same thing :-D
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Aunt Dora Baggins
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May 21 2009, 3:25am
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"Go, and do thou in like manner" are
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 4:19am
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That is so tough. *hug* /
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GaladrielTX
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May 21 2009, 5:01pm
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Sorry to hear about Uncle Baggins' job.
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RosieLass
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May 21 2009, 11:03pm
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Speaking of medical lore...Laurie Garrett, here
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Sunflower
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May 20 2009, 6:42pm
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strange as it may seem, antisepsis was not standard
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 4:40am
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Coraline by Neil Gaiman
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Ainu Laire
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May 20 2009, 7:14pm
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Gaiman
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Sunflower
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May 20 2009, 7:30pm
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It's the ending that gets me. (spoiler?)
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Laitholiel_the_SeaElf
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May 20 2009, 9:30pm
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Just finished The Graveyard Book by Gaiman.
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Laitholiel_the_SeaElf
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May 20 2009, 9:33pm
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Confessing my secret indulgence.
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Kimi
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May 20 2009, 9:23pm
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it would be a nifty title, though
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 4:45am
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True, that :-)
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Kimi
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May 21 2009, 4:55am
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Excellent!
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Lily Fairbairn
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May 21 2009, 2:00pm
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Aha!
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GaladrielTX
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May 21 2009, 5:02pm
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Angry Housewives eating Bon Bons
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Mar
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May 21 2009, 1:07am
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how about an occasionally angry working woman eating "no sugar added" ice cream?
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 4:43am
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Slightly dispirited public servants eating freddo frogs?//
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Penthe
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May 21 2009, 10:20am
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Now there's a club I would join. /
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Ataahua
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May 21 2009, 7:30pm
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I had to Google "Freddo Frogs", but now I agree to join, too! //
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a.s.
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May 21 2009, 10:32pm
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I just read that too (see below) and enjoyed it very much.
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Elberbeth
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May 21 2009, 4:26pm
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A Canticle for Lebowitz
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CAhobbit
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May 21 2009, 5:44am
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I have the same issue with that book.
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Ettelewen
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May 21 2009, 3:46pm
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The Children's Book by AS Byatt
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Penthe
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May 21 2009, 10:28am
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Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife
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Finding Frodo
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May 21 2009, 2:58pm
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Last week I read a "heroic fantasy"
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Elberbeth
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May 21 2009, 4:15pm
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Finished Julie & Julia
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GaladrielTX
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May 21 2009, 5:12pm
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